Latimer Road

Headington Headlines #404

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 28 January – 3 February.

Police continued with their emforcement operation against rat-running in Elms Drive, Marston.

Plans for the latest addition to Oxford University’s Old Road Campus will be on show on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 February. This is the new Institute for Developmental and Regenerative Medicine which will employ over 200 researchers. The exhibition is in Boundary Brook House on Churchill Drive, 4 – 7pm on Friday and 10 – 1 on Saturday.

Police are appealing for information about another back-door break-in, this time in Kiln Lane, Risinghurst.

It looks like Latimer Road is once again going to be the site of parking woes:

Headington seems to have an outbreak of door-to-door fish salesmen; whether it’s one group or several isn’t clear. While they may or may not be legitimate there’s always a worry about where the fish comes from, whether it’s been legally caught, and what recourse a buyer would have if it was sub-standard. Caveat emptor. Thanks to @ox_tale, @Howard_S, @JPDoy and @RobonaBike for information.

The long-running refurbishment of the Barton Community Centre drags on, with local residents reported to be unhappy about work on the site being left in an unsafe state.

My favourite Headington-related tweet:

Once again there were no new posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week.

Headington Headlines #386

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 17 – 23 September .

If you use the Marston cycle path @Marstonbikepath you’ll be pleased to know that it’s been resurfaced between the Cherwell bridge and South Parks Road. When I rode it they were still working on it. The shared section between the two bridges was being laid in gravel on tar. The South Parks Road end had nice smooth tarmac for bikes and gravel/tar for pedestrians, but I gather this may have also become 100% gravel. This seems a strange choice. I hope I’m wrong, but with bikes using it as well as people on foot I’ll be surprised if this surface survives the winter without starting to break up.

The path with tarmac and gravel
The path with tarmac and gravel

The City Council is advertising for a Locality Officer for Barton. A significant part of the job will be working on the ‘Healthy New Towns’ initiative – see my posts Health and Fitness in Barton Park and HH 280 for the background.

The Planning Review Committee meeting to reconsider the refusal of the Swan School application (see this earlier post) has been scheduled for Monday 15 October. Meanwhile, the school is accepting applications for admissions in September 2019. Does it really only take 11 months to build a school and all its associated infrastructure?

Meanwhile a group identifying themselves solely as ‘a group of Marston families’ is calling for signatures on a petition, although they don’t tell you the actual wording of the petition. It just seems to be ‘leave your name and email address if you want the school to go ahead’. The person starting the petition is named as Tessa Clayton; the Swan School has promoted the petition on their own twitter feed. Beware phishing – you might want to read change.org’s privacy policy before clicking to sign the petition.

Cllr Roz Smith reports that the long-awaited rectification of the Latimer Road parking restrictions will happen on and after 1 October. The wrong road markings were painted in after Beech House construction finished.

Active posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:

  • Parking Enforcement

Headington Headlines #357

TonyOX3

Your weekly round-up of local news for 12 – 18 February.

Here’s @RuthWilk‘s damning account of how private companies run rings round the City and County enforcement procedures, in this case in Latimer Road.

A woman from Headington is one of a pair who plan to canoe from England to the Black Sea to raise money for charity.

The Friends of St Nicholas Primary School in Marston are raising money to pay for the children of the school to repaint the mural in the underpass at the Old Marston end of Marston Ferry Road. Donations welcome!

The car park behind Waitrose has been resurfaced.

Agents acting for Christ Church College have submitted a ‘Scoping Application’ for a potential Barton Park-sized development on College-owned land northwest of Barton Park. There will be many hurdles to get over if this development ever gets agreed, not least that the land is Green Belt and isn’t allocated for development in South Oxfordshire DC’s new local plan. The application (ref P18/S0399/SCO) is on the SODC website.

Christ Church College land
Christ Church College land

Intermittent Access to Headington work goes on while the County sorts out the money for the Headley Way phase of the full scheme. The small roundabout at the main enrance to the JR has been removed and replaced with a temporary roundabout pending conversion of the junction to traffic light control when the scheme goes ahead.

Active posts on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum this week:

    • Over 60? Views on sharing photos online? participate in an Oxford Brookes university research project
    • Guide Centenary
    • Headington accommodation